Cyclone Gita hurtles through Tonga, leaving path of destruction

The cyclone is predicted to reach Category 5 status when the eye passes over at midnight.
Source: 1 NEWS

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Source: 1 NEWS

Gita was the strongest cyclone to come this close to the main islands of Tonga in the last recorded 60 years.

Next will be the clean-up and there are already serious concerns around water contamination because of the amount of debris.

Virginie Sini, who live tweeted the storm, wrote at 4.45am (local time): Woke up from a nap and had a look. No more rain (at the moment) and much less wind. It's too dark for image but my street is a swimming pool, blocked at least to the left by broken trees & what used to be a corrugated iron fence. My mosquito screen was ripped off."

The weather system is packing winds of more than 200km/h.
Source: 1 NEWS